Watchdog files lawsuit to get ethics waivers

WATCHDOG GROUP FILES LAWSUIT TO GET ETHICS WAIVERS: “OGE cannot go to court to enforce its demand, but we can,” Austin Evers, director of watchdog organization American Oversight, told POLITICO this morning. The group is giving OGE director Walter Shaub an assist: It filed a lawsuit against the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, and the Environmental Protection Agency, after the agencies failed to respond to FOIA requests for conflict-of-interest waivers granted to employees who are former lobbyists. American Oversight also filed another series of FOIA requests with 23 agencies, seeking the same information that OGE requested in April. More from The Hill’s Megan Wilson.

— As of this morning, Evers tells PI, “we have not received a single ethics waiver from any agency to date. We have not yet seen a response from the White House, OMB, DOJ, or any of the specific agencies that we sued, but that’s not abnormal. We’ll see them in court, that’s where they have to respond.” Federal agencies are supposed to release that information under FOIA, but the White House is not covered.

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NONPROFIT WAGES CAMPAIGN AGAINST LOBBYING FIRM: A little-known nonprofit, Consejo de Latinos Unidos, is waging a campaign to convince Congress and the White House to ban Balch & Bingham from lobbying the Trump administration, alleging it has "engaged in a cover-up of the firm’s lobbying efforts to change Russia sanctions." The CDLU has been after Balch & Bingham since last year, when it alleges the firm was involved in a case targeting an Alabama lawyer. More recently, the nonprofit has written letters to House and Senate leadership and administration officials such as Kellyanne Conway, and it launched a website, banbalch.com.

— One of the nonprofit’s main complaints: Balch scrubbed a mention of Russia from the biography of one of its lobbyists, Bill Stiers. The site previously said Stiers worked to “change specific provisions to sanctions imposed by the U.S. Government against certain Russian companies," according to screenshots taken by the CDLU. It now says that Stiers “worked to allow U.S. Department of Defensecontractors to support Allied air force.” Last week, the CDLU wrote to newly appointed special counsel Robert Mueller, asking him to take “a deep and closer look” at Balch & Bingham’s relationship with Black Hall Aerospace, the Russian company in question, during the 2016 election cycle.

— The firm — which represents clients including Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company — says its website change was innocuous. Balch & Bingham “previously represented an American subcontractor to a large U.S. aerospace company, which had a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to maintain Russian-made helicopters purchased by the Obama Administration,” the firm said in a statement. “To maintain the helicopters, the subcontractor needed to purchase Russian parts. We were retained as lobbying counsel to assist that subcontractor. All of this information is publicly available via our lobbying registrations. We recently updated content on our website to avoid any misunderstanding as to the nature of our representation.”

FORMER OBAMA AND BLOOMBERG OFFICIALS JOIN PATH FORWARD: The Path Forward Coalition has named former Obama administration official Broderick Johnson and former Bloomberg administration official Robert Doar as senior advisers. Johnson is currently a partner at the law firm Bryan Cave and was former assistant to the president and Cabinet secretary under former President Barack Obama. His lobbying clients during an earlier stint at Bryan Cave included Comcast, FedEx, Microsoft, Pearson Education and TransCanada, the firm behind the Keystone XL pipeline. Doar is a Morgridge Fellow in Poverty Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and former commissioner of human resources administration/Department of Social Services under New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The coalition is a joint project of the National Retail Federation and the National Restaurant Association.

OFF MESSAGE PODCAST: Will Eric Garcetti throw his hat into the ring for 2020? In the latest episode of Off Message, Isaac Dovere sits down with the Mayor of Los Angeles, a city, as Garcetti points out, with four million residents, and the sixth largest economy in California and the seventeenth largest if it was an independent country. With Garcetti's keynote at the California state Democratic convention next month, many party leaders across the country believe he could be a real contender. Listen and subscribe iTunes | Panoply | Stitcher

MCDONALD’S SUPER SIZE LOBBYING ROSTER: McDonald’s has super-sized its list of lobbyists, BNA’s Tyrone Richardson reports. McDonald’s added Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck’s Brian McKeon, former senior counsel and legislative aide for former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), and David Reid, a staffer of the Hillary for America2016 presidential campaign; Manatt, Phelps & Phillips’ James J. Bonham, former executive director of the DCCC, chief of staff to former Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Calif.), and spokesman for former Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.); and theGROUP DC’s Darrel Thompson, a staffer of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and former chief of staff to Barack Obama during his Senate campaign. The fast food chain joins other industry players including Yum! Brands and the International Franchise Association to lobby Congress to reject the NLRB’s definition of joint employment. Full story.

SBFA ON SITE:The Eris Group announced it has added a client, the Small Business Finance Association, and willlobby congressional leadership and the Trump administration on small business lending. Lobbyists on the account include the firm’s co-founder Doyle Bartlett, Chris McCannell and Greg Mesack. Eris Group’s other clients include PayPal, Mortgage Bankers Association, Western Union and Nike.

WAYS AND MEANS EXPANSION: House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) announced new hires to the panel’s tax staff: Loren Ponds from E&Y’s national tax department; Aaron Junge from PricewaterhouseCoopers; Randy Gartin from KPMG; John Schoenecker from Tax Executives Institute; and Victoria Glover, who previously worked for Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and at Deloitte.

REVOLVING DOOR IN THE OIL WORLD: Former President Barack Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, now with law firm WilmerHale, is working on behalf ofoil and gas giant Anadarko Petroleum in the aftermath of a fatal home explosion near one of its Colorado wells, International Business Times’ David Sirota and Lydia O’Neil and MapLight’s Andrew Perez report. “Salazar, a corporate lawyer, has previously said he would honor federal ethics laws by walling himself off from matters in which he was involved at the agency. Emails show he has been working for Anadarko in Colorado, though he has not registered to lobby for the company there, state records show.” Full story.

TOMI LAHREN JOINS PRO-TRUMP GROUP: Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren — who last month sued her former employer, Glenn Bleck, and his company, The Blaze — has landed a gig at pro-Trump super PAC Great America Alliance, per TheDallas Morning News’ Naomi Martin. The nonprofit, led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “said in a news release Monday that Lahren will ‘execute communications and messaging strategies to expand grass-roots support of the president's policies across the country.’”Full story.

JOBS REPORT:

— Palo Alto Networks has tapped Coleman Mehta as senior director for U.S. policy. He previously served as director for legislative affairs at the White House’s National Security Council under both the Trump and Obama administrations.

— Andrew Malcolm is joining Exelon’s public advocacy team after seven years with Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), most recently as deputy chief of staff.

— D.C.-based government relations firm Federal Advocates, Inc. announced today it has hired Oleksandr Savostianov as director of international affairs. Savostianov arrives to the firm from the Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco, where he was deputy chief of mission.

— Ana D. Schwab joins Best Best & Kreiger as assistant director of governmental affairs. Previously, she worked as a private lobbyist for Washington firms Fox Rothschild and Greenberg Traurig.

— CRAFT is adding Becky Boles as senior vice president of communications from APCO Worldwide, where she was senior vice president and practice group leader. Previously, she spent a decade at Golin and was also managing director at now-folded social media start up David All Group.

— Subject Matter announced Nicole Cornish has joined the firm as its first president and chief operating officer. Cornish most recently held the role of U.S. chief operating officer at Burson-Marsteller.

— Loren Blackford has been named the next president of the Sierra Club's board of directors as the organization elected its first-ever all female executive committee. (h/t Morning Energy)

— Maggie Molina has been named senior director of policy for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy; Pasha Majdi also joins the organization as federal policy manager from his previous role as a professional staff member on Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. (h/t Morning Energy)

SPOTTED: At the Hall of States for the Large Public Power Council's 30th Anniversary reception Monday: Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.); acting FERCChairman Cheryl LaFleur;former Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), former Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.); Tom Kuhn, president of Edison Electric Institute; Sue Kelly; president and CEO of the American Public Power Association; and John Di Stasio,president of the LPPC.

— Thanks to PI tipster, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) dining together at Fiola Monday night.

CALENDAR:

— The Turkey-U.S. Business Council and the American Turkish Council are sponsoring a three-day conference, the 36th annual conference on U.S.-Turkey Relations at the Trump hotel. Keynote speakers include Alptekin, founder of Inovo BW, a company that paid Michael Flynn’s consulting firm Flynn Intel Group.

— The bipartisan Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth will head to the Hill on Wednesday, as part of its annual “Foster Youth Shadow Day.” The event will host more than 100 current and former foster youth from across the nation, allowing them to share their experiences with members of Congress. California Rep. Karen Bassis co-founder and a co-chair of the Congressional Youth Caucus and will lead the fly-in.

— Representatives from the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, a member organization of the Save The Adoption Tax Credit Coalition, are descending on the Hill this week to advocate for the Adoption Tax Credit, following last week’s fly-in hosted by coalition member RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. Combined, both fly-ins will result in hundreds of advocates meeting with more than 100 member offices, including Reps. Steny Hoyer(D-Md.),Marsha Blackburn(R-Tenn.),Paul Ryan (R-Wis.);and Sens.Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Cory Booker(D-N.J.),Rob Portman(R-Ohio),andPatty Murray(D-Wash.).

Authors:

About The Author

Mary Lee is a legislative reporter for POLITICO. She graduated from Northwestern University with a master's degree in Journalism. Before diving into journalism, she taught English on three different continents. She also holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Education.

About The Author

Kelsey Tamborrino is a Senior Copy Editor for POLITICO Pro.

Before joining POLITICO, she was a communications intern at the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an editorial intern at Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and an online editorial intern at Men’s Health magazine.

In spring 2015, Tamborrino graduated from the Pennsylvania State University, where she studied print journalism, English and international studies. At Penn State, Tamborrino was the managing editor of Penn State’s student newspaper, The Daily Collegian, for the 2014-15 academic year. She also studied British politics and English literature in Leeds, England, where she studied abroad at the University of Leeds.

Tamborrino is from Easton, Pa. She enjoys hiking, reading and exploring D.C.